Rise of The Shadows
by KaibaGirl007
Summary: Emma is left in charge of Kaiba Corp whilst Kaiba is in America, and the last thing she needs is to be facing evil, again. Set during the Waking the Dragon series. Part 4 of 5
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**  
I would just like to state that I have no rights Yugioh, or any of the other pop culture references used in this story. Emma however is my own creation.  
Research has gone into making this story but may not be 100 accurate.It is written based mainly on the  
US dubbed version of the show, as that is what I am more familiar with.  
This story features cards that I made up myself, and is set during the Waking the Dragons series.  
This story has been rated T as it contains scenes of violence, torture and death that some people may find disturbing.

Chapter 1

The door of the conference room opened and Emma left as the flashes from the news reporters' cameras continued behind her. She made her way along the corridor and passed Kaiba's office to get to her own that was next door to his.

_When she had decided to stay in Domino city the first thing she had to do was find a place to stay and a job. Not surprisingly all her friends had offered to help her out, and in the end she agreed to stay with Bakura, just until she could afford to pay for her own place. It had been fun for the short time that she had stayed there as neither of them became lonely, but once he had started to get in to a more serious relationship with Sarah, Emma thought it would be best to move out. She didn't want any misunderstandings about Bakura breaking out between Sarah and herself as the two of them had also become good friends. And when her generous new boss had paid her a month's salary in advance, she didn't hesitate to make the move._

The first thing that Emma did once she'd entered the room was make herself a cup of tea. Tea was the answer to most problems and tasted a lot better than coffee. She removed her suit jacket while she waited for her tea to brew, as she hated having to look formal when no one else was around.

_She remembered how she had turned down Kaiba's job offer several times before taking it. He had offered her a job the moment he learnt that she was staying, but she didn't accept it in case any rumours about them two being an item were started, which probably would have been started by Joey in an attempt to wind Kaiba up even more. And she had continued to refuse the offers made until Kaiba had appealed to her weakness and sent his brother to ask her instead. Emma always found it hard to say no to Mokuba and so ended up taking a job as a spokeswoman for Kaiba Corp._

Grabbing her drink she crashed down in to the chair behind her desk. She threw the glasses that she was wearing on to the desktop and rubbed her eyes. She was tired as she had been having a lot of trouble sleeping over the past few days, and felt like the tea was the only thing keeping her awake at the moment. She turned in the chair so that she could look out of her windows and out across the city of Domino. The sky was lit up by bright wavy lights that resembled the aurora borealis. She sipped her tea as she watched a flock of duel monsters fly by her window.

_For the past couple of weeks, the creatures that were part of the duel monsters game had been roaming around the city. At first people blamed Kaiba Corp and accused the company of having faulty technology with their dueldisks which they believed to be the cause of the monsters that they were seeing. With Kaiba in America opening a line of amusement parks it was left down to Emma to answer all of the questions that the public wanted answering._

But what do you say on a situation that you knew very little about? Emma had almost no idea about what was going on. She was beginning to feel very stressed and run down after spending almost twelve hours a day answering questions in front of countless TV crews and news reporters. She rubbed her tired eyes once more before she continued to watch the flight path of the monsters that had flown by. If it wasn't for Yugi then she wouldn't have even known the little that she did.

_From what Yugi had told her, Emma knew that the monsters had appeared after Yugi had visited the museum to try and help unlock Yami's memories of being the pharaoh in ancient Egypt. When the three Egyptian god cards had been held in front of the stone tablet there, it somehow managed to open a gateway between the real world and the duel monster world, so in fact the monsters were real and not holographic projections from circuit blown dueldisks like the media were suggesting. She had been meaning to meet up with Yugi to discuss things further but the never-ending conferences had kept her so busy that she had missed him completely as he, Joey, Tristan and Tea had flown out to America too. Emma wondered why they had gone, and just what was it that Yugi had wanted to tell her before he went?_

Emma watched as yet more monsters appeared and disappeared down in the streets below. Even though they were trampling through the city, the monsters weren't actually attacking anyone, and only a handful of people had claimed that they had. She watched as some toon monsters playfully surprised a group of teenagers and her thoughts turned to her brother.

_She hadn't heard from him since he called her last month to wish her a happy eighteenth birthday. She was beginning to get worried about him, but knew that he must be okay as he had invited Duke Devlin over to discuss even more new editions to the Dungeon Dice Monsters game. Maybe he was just busy caught up with business deals like she was with news conferences? She wondered if Industrial Illusions were facing the same accusations over the appearance of the duel monsters that Kaiba Corp was facing._

Down below, Emma could see all of the media crews leave the KC building. She was glad that they had finally gone as it meant that she too could leave. Quickly she finished the last of her tea before she left her office.

Emma waited for the elevator to arrive, but on its arrival she changed her mind as the doors opened and the dreaded panpipe music flowed out. She had asked Kaiba many times to change the music to something else, but so far he had refused. She suspected that he found it amusing to watch her wince at the sound every time that they rode the elevator together, so gave up trying to change it. It wasn't really harming anyone and brought a smile to her friend's face so she didn't mind too much, but right now she didn't feel in the mood to put up with the torturous music so decided to take the stairs instead.

Emma began to descend the many staircases of the KC building and hadn't gotten very far when she heard a familiar voice come from behind her. "Why aren't you fulfilling your destiny?"

She stopped in surprise at hearing Shadi's voice and felt the anger that she held towards him slowly rise in her. Calmly she turned to face him and asked; "Why did you leave me alone when I needed you the most?"

"Don't you know that it's rude to answer one question with another?" Shadi said, obviously not happy with the reply that he had just gotten.

"Then it's something that you too seem to have forgotten." Emma remarked coldly as she fort to keep her anger back. "Just why did you leave me?"

"You had lessons that needed to be learnt with the powers of your millennium key." Shadi calmly stated. "And from what I can tell, you still haven't mastered them yet. You've let your new friends get in the way of unleashing your potential." He now sounded really disappointed in her.

"My friends have been the ones who have been there when I needed them." She felt her anger boil as he had insulted her friends. "_They_, are the ones who gave me the strength to accomplish what I have. _They_, are the ones who believed in me and never left my side."

Shadi could see that Emma wasn't going to back down until he told her what she wanted to know. "I had to stop your brother from interfering, as he would only have made matters worse."

"Well your attempt to keep him out of the picture by causing his pneumonia didn't work." Emma sneered at her old mentor who looked rather surprised. "He got out of his death-bed to come and find me, and succeeded."

"Then neither of you understand the danger that you may now face." Shadi managed to say with grave concern in his voice, before he felt himself pushed up against the wall behind him.

"Shut up, I'm talking!" Emma spat as she pinned Shadi to the wall after losing control of her anger. "What have you done to him now? Why haven't I heard from him recently?"

"I haven't done anything else to him, nor did I know that he had found you." Shadi said sincerely and was released from Emma's grip as she realised that he was telling the truth. "What's happened to you? You've never acted like this before."

"I guess I just entered the real world." Emma said as she backed away from him so that she wouldn't try to harm him anymore. "And I have your betrayal to thank for that."

Suddenly she felt her anger disappear. She had been holding on to the fact that she felt betrayed by someone that she cared about for so long that now she had finally told him it all just disappeared. Her confidence and voice also began to waver as she continued to speak to him. "I looked up to you. I believed every word that you ever told me. Then you left me alone, and at one point I even thought you were dead." Her eyes began to fill up with tears. "You preach on about me fulfilling my destiny, but the night that I faced Sobek I almost died, and if it wasn't for the pharaoh's quick thinking to stop the shadow realm from taking me, then I would have."

For the first time, it seemed that Shadi began to feel slightly guilty about what he had done as he watched his former student fall apart in front of him. "What happened?"

"It doesn't matter, it's in the past." Emma told him as she wiped away the tears, ignoring the concern in Shadi's voice. "Just like you are." She grabbed hold of the chain that hung around her neck and removed the millennium key from herself. She looked down at the shiny golden ankh and for the first time realised just how much pain it was causing her to feel inside. Once she got rid of every memory of Shadi, only then would she be able to move on with her life. She threw the millennium key down at his feet. "I want nothing more to do with this nonsense."

"Hathor, you don't really mean this." Shadi said as he reached down to retrieve the millennium key.

Emma stared at him hard, not even bothering to argue at the name he had just addressed her by, before she turned and continued her way down the stairs. Even though she had hated him, she thought that the least she could do to leave on friendlier terms was to say goodbye to him for one last time, so after a few steps she turned to do just that, only to find that Shadi had disappeared.

It hadn't taken Emma long to finish descending the stairs and leave the building, to where she now walked outside in the company's car park. She approached a small red sports car with the number plate; KG007, and deactivated the alarm. The car had been her birthday present from both of the Kaiba brothers, but as far as Yugi and the rest of the gang were concerned she had bought it herself and was still making payments towards it. She hated lying about it but that was what she had promised Kaiba that she would say if any of them asked about it.

As she sat in the driver's seat and strapped herself in, she felt like a huge weight had been lifted from her. She no longer had to worry about Shadi or her so-called 'destiny', and was now free to live her life how she wanted with absolutely nobody to tell her what to do. She switched on her radio;

_I wanna be young the rest of my life  
Never say no - try anything twice  
Til the angels come and ask me to fly  
I'm gonna be Eighteen til I die _

"Eighteen til I die!" Emma shouted as she joined in with the song and drove away.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Together Bakura and Sarah ran through the streets as they were being chased by a much feared duel monster. They had been trying to out run it for a while now and were beginning to feel exhausted when Bakura pulled both of them into an alley were they hid behind a dumpster. The two of them holding their breath watched as they saw the reaper of the cards past right by them.

"Why do things like this always happen to me?" Bakura said as he let out a sigh and slowly sank to the ground to rest and catch his breath. "I guess that I'm just full of bad luck."

"Quit complaining." Sarah laughed as she pulled him back up on to his feet. "You've got me now." she kissed him on the check. "Or am I part of your bad luck too?"

"No." Bakura said before Sarah had even finished her sentence. He didn't want her to ever think like that, as she had been one of the few good things that had happened to him over the past couple of years. He smiled as he gazed into her pretty face. "You do know that I would do anything for you." he told her.

"Then how about taking me home?" Sarah smiled back at him as they both held hands and began to set off for the bridge to cross so that she could return home.

The streets of Domino city where pretty much empty as Emma drove her way home. Many of the city's residents had chosen not to leave the safety of their homes when there were monsters about roaming the streets. They had also learnt that the monsters appeared more during the time that the auroras were present in the sky.

As Emma turned a tight corner through the streets she slammed on the brakes as she saw that the road was full of a small army of kuriboh. They all glared at her before they moved out of the way in what seemed like a hurry.

Even though she was tired and wanted to get home, Emma's curiosity got the better of her. She reached over on to the back seat of her car and grabbed her dueldisk before she followed after the kuriboh.

They were running again now and both of them were very exhausted. Bakura pulled Sarah down one of the alleys in an attempt to lose their chasers just like they had done before, only to find that he had led them in to an empty dead end alley.

"Bollocks!" Bakura muttered at the mistake that he had just made. "Oh well, at least it's only a couple of kuriboh, so we don't really have anything to fear."

"Ryou." Sarah tugged at his sleeve causing Bakura to turn around. "I wouldn't be too sure about that."

Bakura turned to see that the alley had filled up with a huge crowd of kuriboh, and that more were trying to enter in to the tightly packed space. He knew that on their own kuriboh were harmless creatures, but when they stuck together they could cause some serious damage to their target. He saw some of the closer ones to them bare small razor sharp fangs and made sure that he stood in front of Sarah just in case any of them tried to attack, then he would take the full force of it to ensure that she was okay.

Many more of the kuriboh were now baring their fangs and small growls and snarls were coming from them also. Bakura braced himself for an attack as he saw one of the kuriboh at the front get ready to pounce. He heard another growl come from the crowd but this time it wasn't a kuriboh. The growl became slightly louder as a small white lion cub flashed in and out of the sea of kuriboh before it finally stopped with its back turned to Bakura and Sarah, as it stood firm waiting for any one of the kuriboh to try and attack.

"Is that Kimba?" Sarah asked in amazement as she only knew one person who had the duel monster in her deck. She watched as the lion cub growled once more for the kuriboh to back away, but still they remained.

Suddenly one for the kuriboh sprang forward at Bakura but failed to reach him as Kimba struck it down from its attack. The kuriboh disappeared before their eyes as it had been destroyed by the cub, before it roared once more as a warning to anymore kuriboh that were thinking of harming the two humans.

Slowly the kuriboh backed out of the alley leaving it empty once more. Emma stood at the entrance and called Kimba back in to his card. "Are you guys alright?"

"We're fine." Bakura assured her. "But I seem to be attracting more monsters lately."

"You're just being paranoid. There are just a lot more of them about." Emma told him as they both joined her, but neither one of them seemed comforted by what she had said. She sighed deeply. "How about you come back to my place until the aurora disappears, and then I'll take you to where you need to go."

The three friends headed back towards Emma's car, with Emma explaining about her bad day at work, how Shadi had shown up and that she no longer had possession of the millennium key. Sarah seemed to lose herself in her own thoughts after the first twenty minutes, but Bakura listened to every word that had to be said.

One of the first things that Emma did when she had reached her apartment was to take a shower and change in to some more comfortable clothes. She had told Bakura and Sarah to just make themselves at home while she sorted herself out, and returned to find them both snuggled up on the sofa watching the television. She seated herself behind the kitchen bar so that she didn't interrupt the cosy scene that lay before her, but as she stared at Sarah who had her head resting against Bakura's chest she felt the bitter stab of jealously.

Emma tried to vanquish the feeling that had arisen, but it was no good. She stared at them both once more. She was jealous at the face that they both had someone who cared about them in a romantic way, and that she had no-one. It wasn't like she hadn't though about becoming involved in a relationship, but that she wasn't sure if the person she had feelings for felt the same way back, and she wasn't willing to risk losing the friendship that they had just to find out. But how much longer could she hide the feelings that she had for Kaiba?

"Is something wrong?" Bakura asked as he glanced over his shoulder towards Emma who was beginning to get lost in her own thoughts. He looked concerned at the way that his friend was staring at him.

"Nothing." Emma smiled shaking her head. "I was just thinking of asking someone out." She couldn't believe what she had just said, and tried to get herself out of the awkward situation as Sarah's attention was now drawn to her as well. "What I mean is erm………." She was failing badly and felt herself start to blush. It looked like she would just have to say what was on her mind. "Friends come and go right, but what if you only get one chance at love and you don't do anything about it?"

"You wouldn't happen to be talking about a guy whose initials are SK would you?" Sarah teased with that friendly smile she always wore.

_Damn_, why did female friends always seem to know what's on each others' minds? Emma felt herself begin to burn redder than she had ever done. "No." she said, knowing that Sarah wouldn't buy that for an instant, and was glad of the distraction that came from her beeping laptop.

She flipped open her laptop and started typing away to find the problem. It didn't take her long and she covered her face with both her hands to hide her expression. The screen flashed at her to tell her that over fifty-one percent of Kaiba Corp had been bought out by another buyer.

She had known that the company had begun to be bought out by a single buyer, but Kaiba had told her and his other employees that everything was under control and not to worry about it. Her first thought was of what his reaction to the situation would be. It wasn't uncommon to find that business men often committed suicide at times when things like this happened.

Emma picked up her cell phone and dialled his number. "Come on pick up!" she hissed at the phone which rang before cutting out on her.

"What's wrong?" both Bakura and Sarah asked together.

Not hearing them Emma dialled another number which was answered almost straight away. She didn't wait for the other person to speak as she began to talk; "Hi Roland, it's Emma. I can't get through to Seto, I think his phone's turned off, do you know where he is?"

"He's currently in flight, which would explain why his cell phone's off." Roland's voice came down from the other end of the phone line, and Emma felt her heart slow down as she knew that Kaiba hadn't done anything stupid. "Can I pass on a message for you?"

Emma hesitated for a moment as she wondered if Roland knew about the company finally being taken over. "It's happened, the company's gone."

"Oh, no!" came the cry from down the phone that told Emma that they hadn't heard yet. "I'll tell him as soon as I see him." Roland assured her as a faint bleeping sound came over their conversation. "I have to go, someone is trying to get through on the other line." The line went dead as Roland cut her off to answer the other call.

Emma cancelled the call on her phone too and for a moment just stared at it. What would happen now that the company was gone and just how would Kaiba react to the bad news?

"Are you okay?" Sarah asked, breaking the silence that had fallen upon them.

"Yeah." Emma replied. She gazed out of the window to see that the aurora had disappeared from the sky. "It doesn't seem so bad now, so I'll take you home."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Emma and Bakura were on their way back after dropping off Sarah at her home on the other side of the bridge. The aurora had reappeared in the sky once more and the few people that they had seen about were making their way to the safety of their homes. As they approached the bridge to return to the city they were warned not to cross by the security guards who had been informed of monster sightings on the bridge itself.

But Emma was tired and just wanted to get home, so she ignored his warnings and sped away across the bridge with her music on full blast;

_If I could say what I want to say  
I'd say I want to blow you--away  
Be with you every night  
Am I squeezing you too tight  
If I could say what I want to see  
I want to see you go down--on one knee  
Marry me today  
Guess I'm wishing my life away  
With these things I'll never say._

"Does it have to be so loud?" Bakura asked as he turned the volume down and rubbed his temples.

"Sorry." Emma apologized as she hadn't meant to cause her friend's headache. "Right now it's about the only thing keeping me awake. I'm just feeling tired and drained at the moment, and the last thing I want is for us to crash while I'm driving."

"What's that?" Bakura pointed to the road in front of them were an unknown duel monster was smashing up abandoned cars.

Emma slowed and stopped the car. "Stay here, I'll sort this out." She reached on to the back seat grabbed her dueldisk and removed her cards from her jacket pocket and placed them in to the dueldisk. She activated it and stepped out on to the bridge to face the monsters.

They were monsters that she hadn't seen before, which she felt was strange as her brother had shown her details for every card that had ever been made. The monsters themselves looked like big ogres with weird looking dueldisks on their arms, and on their foreheads was a strange looking symbol that glowed green. But they didn't seem to be duelling, just smashing up cars, and Emma doubted that they could be that smart to duel in the first place.

She summoned her strongest monsters from her deck and set them loose against the towering ogres. It didn't take much effort to destroy them, but it was going to take a while as they were so many of them.

Bakura watched from where he sat in Emma's car. She was doing a good job of defeating the new monsters but she had failed to see one that was approaching from behind her. He got out of the car and yelled a warning to her. "Watch out behind you!"

Suddenly his whole head felt like it was caving in. He retreated to inside the safety of the car and locked the doors. Holding his head in his hands he looked out the window to see that Emma hadn't heard his warning in time and had been wounded by one of the monsters which was now being destroyed by her Pikachu.

"No." He held his head tightly before he screwed up his eyes and hit the dashboard with both hands. "No!" A tear rolled down the side of his face before his eyes opened and he peered out of the windscreen window to watch Emma's Pikachu finish off the last of the monsters.

Emma tried to hold her shoulder where the monster had struck her but couldn't quite reach as it was too far round to her back. It didn't hurt too badly and she guessed that it wasn't too deep as she hadn't seen any blood loss on the ground below her. She looked around to see that all of the monsters were now gone and decided to call all her monsters back in to their cards.

As she removed her deck from the dueldisk a gust of wind caught her by surprise and swept them over the side of the bridge. Emma ran to the barrier railings and looked over to see her cards disappear in to the dark river below. She swore under her breath at the loss of her cards but knew that she had been lucky not to have been hurt more seriously by the monster that had attacked her.

"That shoulder looks bad." Bakura said gently as he approached her.

Emma stared in disbelief at the river where her cards now where. "Is it deep?" she asked as she felt Bakura's hand run across her right shoulder blade.

"No." Bakura replied. "But I think you may need stitches."

"Great." Emma sighed at the thought of having to spend hours waiting at the local ER. "I don't see how today could possibly get any worse."

"I do." came a voice that made Emma freeze with terror.

Before she had the chance to move she felt herself being lifted up in to the air and began to fall over the side of the bridge towards the dark river. She twisted her body and managed to grab hold of the railings, which sent a pain running all the way through her right shoulder as both arms took the weight of her body that now dangled in the air. She looked up to see the sight that she thought she'd never see again, Bakura under the control of the spirit of the millennium ring.

"I told you that you hadn't seen the last of me." he taunted as he crouched down so that his face was nearer to his terrified victim.

"No!" Emma shouted in disbelief. "I got rid of you. How did you return?"

"Let's just say that your bag containing the pieces of the two broken millennium items didn't reach your vault." He reached in to Bakura's jacket and held up a now complete millennium ring. "Isn't it surprising at just how well things can be mended these days? And I've also heard that you no longer possess your millennium item."

"Bakura, you have to fight him." Emma tried to make contact with her friend as she felt herself slip slightly down the railings. "I know you can do it. You're not weak like he makes you believe that you are."

Inside his mind Bakura could hear his friend pleading for his help. He wanted to believe that he was stronger than the spirit but he just couldn't see how that was possible. He sat there listening as the conversation continued.

"He's not listening to you; his mind is caught up in other things." He heard the spirit say with great amusement.

And he was right. The spirit had attacked his new weak spot and threatened to harm Sarah if he wasn't allowed to have his revenge. Bakura slowly moved closer to the back of his own mind. He played over what Emma had told him earlier. _Friends come and go, but what if you only get one chance at love?_

Emma struggled to keep hold of the bars as she tried to swing herself so that she could try and climb back up on to the bridge. She stopped after one attempt as the pain in her shoulder raged. She looked up again to see the spirit's amusement at her failed attempt.

"I think that it's time that I paid you back for burning my hands." the spirit held the millennium ring against Emma's left hand that was gripped tightly around the railing, and slowly it began to burn.

Emma held back most of the pain that she felt, and refused to let go as she knew that her chances of surviving the drop in to the river were pretty low with the condition she was in. The pain increased and she cried out even more, before finally it stopped as the nerves in her hand were destroyed, which also meant that she could no longer keep the grip that she had on the railing.

Her shoulder raged once more as her whole body was now supported by just the strength of her right hand. She looked up at the spirit who glared down at her. "I'm sorry did that hurt?" he smirked.

"You don't scare me." Emma summoned all the strength she could to make her voice sound firm.

"Well I think that your tears say otherwise." the spirit snarled at her with annoyance at how well she was managing to last in his little game. "Tell me, where is your hope now?"

Emma turned her face away from him. She had managed to hide it from him for so long and wasn't about to let him see that she didn't have any left. She looked down at the river once more, and released just how tired she was feeling. She could end it all now and rest for eternity if she just let go. But that would mean that the spirit would have won and she wasn't going to let him have the satisfactory for knowing that he had managed to destroy her completely.

"Go on beg." The spirit coaxed her. "Beg for your life, and I might let you live."

Emma returned her stare towards him once more. She drew her head back, hawked and spat in his face. She watched this time for her own amusement as he slowly wiped the spit out of his eye. "I'd rather die."

"So be it." snarled the spirit as he held the millennium ring to her right hand which burned instantly, and grew even more annoyed and frustrated when Emma didn't even make a sound to indicate that she was feeling any pain.

Surprisingly it took longer for her right hand to be destroyed than what it had with her left hand. As she felt herself fall she saw what looked like the look of defeat appear across the spirit's face.

Emma felt the water rush over her as she hit its surface and slowly began to be dragged down in to its depths. Thoughts and memories began to rush through her head. She had memories of her family and friends that didn't remind her of happy times, but instead of the fact that they had all abandoned her in the end. But she felt satisfied that she had been able to find her own strength to face what had been the hardest time in her life, as she looked death in the face and greeted it with open arms.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

It was nearly dawn, as Emma sat in her favourite spot by the edge of the river and gazed out towards the bridge. She felt cold in the morning air and had her arms wrapped tightly around her body inside her jacket.

On the bank of the river came the flashing lights of the emergency crews that had been called after receiving a phone call about a person that had been sighted falling from the bridge. They had been searching for almost two hours and they hadn't found anything. Slowly news crews were beginning to show up to cover the story.

Emma diverted her gaze from the bridge to the water as people suddenly began running around and shouting to each other. She watched as two divers pulled a body towards the shore which she realised was her own. The medics quickly rushed to cover up her body before the cameras had time to zoom in on the discovery. She continued to sit silently as she watched them go about their job, and she showed no signs of emotions during the whole time.

A bright light appeared behind the bench that she was sitting on and a tall robed man walked out from it. He sat down on the bench next to her. "I'm sorry my child, but your time here is now over."

Emma continued to stare towards the river. "Why can't I remember any of the previous lives when I'm sent to the next?"

"That's the power of reincarnation." the older man explained to her. "It allows us to live on in others, for without it we become the shadows ourselves."

A tear fell down the side of Emma's face. "I can't do this anymore father." she turned and faced the man seated next to her. "I'm destroying innocent lives just to try and resolve our wars."

For a moment there was silence between them as they both knew that there was truth in her statement. "Ra!" came a call from the light behind them.

Ra rose from the bench. "Come, Orsirus is waiting."

"You want me to go so that he can just send me to the next life?" Emma said in disgust as she stared at her father. "I think not."

"No." Ra extended his hand to his daughter. "You have proven yourself to us elders, and now we request that you join us in the higher place as we wait for the pharaoh's return." He lowered his hand as he could see that Emma didn't intend to take it. "Only when all our people are gathered can this world truly be rid of the shadows that plague it." He turned and disappeared in to the light that he came from.

Emma thought about her father's last words and also rose from her seat. She turned to see that the light was beginning to slowly fade. As she began to follow after him she noticed a familiar face stood before her, Shadi.

"Well Hathor, you took a little bit longer to reach the final step of your destiny," Shadi began to tell her. "But you helped others on your way, and that they will be forever grateful for."

"What do you mean?" Emma asked curiously.

"The night you faced Sobek was meant to be your last time in human form." Shadi explained. "The sacrifice you made to send him to the shadows was what would entitle you to join the elders in their wait. This I knew was meant to be your destiny and that was way I stopped Pegasus from reaching you as I knew he would have taken you from the situation, but I did not count on just how powerful a newly made friendship would be. Whatever the pharaoh did that night interfered with destiny's plans and instead here you remained to continue with a life that wasn't meant to be."

Emma looked at the light as it was already half faded and then back at Shadi as he continued to talk. "And since that night you became even stronger than what I thought would have been possible for you to achieve. You have learnt much more about the powers that are within yourself from the friendships you made along the way." Shadi looked slightly uncomfortable with what he was about to admit. "No amount of training that I gave you would have ever been able to unleash that."

Emma began to feel slightly bad about the thoughts that she had thought about during her last remaining moments alive. She had the support of all her friends even though they weren't with her all of the time. And she had always had Shadi's best intentions even though they didn't seem like it at the time. "Thank you." She smiled back at him before she entered the faded light and joined the rest of her people.

**THE END**


End file.
